New poem: Pizza Delivery

I ordered a pizza the other night - Margherita with

extra olives - and about twenty minutes later the

pizza guy came over. He took it out of his carrier,

and handed it over. I said thanks.

He said, ‘Do you want that?’

I said, ‘Yes.’

He said, ‘Right.’

I said, ‘That’s why I ordered it.’

He said, ‘I thought so.’

I started to shut the door and he said, ‘Any chance

of giving me some?’

He said, ‘If you don’t want to give me some, I could

buy some off you.’

I said, ‘How much?’

He said, ‘How about a quid for a quarter?’

I said, ‘A quid! The whole pizza has cost me nearly

a tenner.’

He said, ‘Well, what if you take the olives off, that

would make it less...you know...?’

I said, ‘How about you have a bit less than a quarter

and, as you say, no olives?’

He said, ‘Quid, yes?’

I said, ‘OK.’

I opened up the box and it was a Margherita but there

were no extra olives on it.

I said, ‘Looks like we can’t do the olive deal.’

He said, ‘What do you mean? The bit you were going

to sell me was going to have no olives on it anyway.’

I said, ‘No, no, that doesn’t work. Taking olives off

would have made it worth less. And anyway, I would

have got extra-extra olives on the rest of my

pizza.’

So he said, ‘I’ve got an extra marshmallow in here.

I could throw that in as part of the deal.’

I said, ‘I’m allergic.’

He said, ‘Allergic? How do you know you’re

allergic to marshmallow.’

I said, ‘Once when I was a kid, I ate a pack of

marshmallows and got spots all over my hands.’

He said, ‘You can’t be sure it was the marshmallows.

What else did you eat that day?’

I said, ‘Probably some bread and butter. Maybe an

egg. Rhubarb. I liked rhubarb.’

He said, ‘Me too. I really liked rhubarb. It’s funny

you don’t see it in the shops much.’

I said, ‘No, and they say that if cows eat rhubarb

leaves they die.’

He said, ‘Wow. I wonder how many cows died

eating rhubarb leaves.’

I said, ‘No way of saying.’

He said, ‘Yes, and you know how they say that you

can find out anything and everything on the internet

but I bet that’s one fact you couldn’t find.’

I said, ‘Right.’

He said, ‘Sorry about the olives, by the way, it’s not

me who does the extra olives.’

I said, ‘Who does the olives?’

He said, ‘Samantha, but it’s her last day. She’s moving

to Leeds.’

I said, ‘Right.’

And then he went.